[Please Delete]

I used AOL many years ago and you know what......

Now don't shoot or spam me for this.....

I LIKE THEIR ATTITUDE TOWARD CENSORING SOME THINGS

I for one am tired of getting porn emails, and now those damn replica watches.
I am now looking at starting a family and I appreciate the efforts AOL and Walmart are doing in censoring and keeping smut off peoples computers. Now I know a lot of you are going to argue that you should be the one to decide what to censor but you have to give it to AOL, they are making headway in the spam and smut battle.

Not everything about AOL is bad, they are still one of the most child friendly internet services. I know that the parent is ultimately responsible but I feel there would be a good market for a highly censored internet connection.

Go ahead make my day, censor me, at least it will keep the kids safe.

PS. Before you argue a software install, remember that a lot of houses have more then one computer and kids are so smart they often find a way around these programs. I want to keep smut off my connection PERIOD.

I currently have a totally unfiltered broadband connection and I am really getting annoyed what is making its way to my computer so..... GO AHEAD AND CENSOR THE HELL OUT OF ME

[Jaime]

Okay?

[Joey Malinowski]

says it all...

[Rikki]

Censoring the bad stuff (and I mean stuff that society as a whole deems bad. Spam. Illegal porn. Criminal instructions, etc.) is fine. Censoring anything they don't like or anything that doesn't fit within their moral boundaries is wrong. If you're happy with it, that's fine. Luckily, those that don't agree aren't forced to use them; there's other alternatives.

(I don't know exactly what they censor, but I get the impression it's anything that doesn't fit into the notion of 'a pefect society without sin')

[Stephen]

Can't tell if this is suppose to be a rant against AOL censoring or you saying you agree with them doing so

This post has been edited by Stephen: 24 November 2005 - 02:52 PM

[Rikki]

Stephen, on Nov 24 2005, 02:52 PM, said:

Can't tell if this is suppose to be a rant against AOL censoring or you saying you agree with them doing so

I thought it was pretty clear he's in favour of AOL's censoring, or did you skip over the I LIKE THEIR ATTITUDE TOWARD CENSORING SOME THINGS and GO AHEAD AND CENSOR THE HELL OUT OF ME?

[Stephen]

Yes and it could just be sarcasm

[CTerry]

Stephen, on Nov 24 2005, 02:59 PM, said:

Yes and it could just be sarcasm

Its pretty evident if you read the post that he's not

Bad Stephen! Bad!

[//Nathan]

Is this directed at me, with all my rants and raves against AOL and the Walmart branded AOL?

You know what they censor? Postsecret for one... it's that blog project where people send in postcards with secrets they've never told anyone. It's rather addictive in the same way Jerry Springer is. Or at least it was.

Two, nVidia... Nope, I can't get updated GeForce drivers because someone at either AOL or Walmart doesn't agree with some aspect of computer gaming. But isn't that like the pot calling the kettle black... AOL is or was partnered with Time Warner, who are at least indirectly responsible for games... the best I can do is the Matrix games, since that's Warner. Now Walmart... though they only sell "Edited" CDs, they sell R-rated movies, and... you guessed it, violent video games. They used to have San Andreas before the "Hot Coffee" scandal, but they still carry the other two [new ones GTA3 and VC].

They also censored a Star Trek page, I no longer have the link for. It was linked on a Star Trek forum.

The way their censorship works is, if you try to access a page they've got blacklisted, they terminate your Internet connection. You can reconnect, but you'll be kicked every time you try to access those pages, without warning or given reason.

And that's with Parental Control disabled, using the "Master" account, in a home with no children, only a 26 year old guy and his 23 year old girlfriend.

And you can't even claim they're keeping smut off of people's computers. They were sending my brother (aged 17 at the time, 18 is "legal age" where we were living) gay porn, with pictures, and threatened to kick us off for a month if we continued "harassing their trusted business partners"... In fact I just posted about this in Community Technical Chat... [Link]

So they're keeping some smut off of customers' computers... all that's not getting them kickbacks...

[Skreid]

I think he's talking about AOLs spam filter. That's not really censoring... Just blocking out bogus emails.

[//Nathan]

Well, he did mention Walmart... I've never heard of anyone on here using the Walmart branded AOL until I started [whining] about it... Not to say I'm the first or anything, but still. The original post hit home.

I have nothing at all against spam filters. But AOL and AOL based ISPs are set up to send you spam, junk [snail] mail, and even call your home? Go into the control panel type area and look at the marketing preferences. Turn them off... one... at... a... bloody... time...

For the record, I'm thinking of starting a family as well... My girlfriend and I do want to get married, we're just waiting for me to come up with a ring basically... She wants one boy and I want two girls, we're both happy with three kids, because she's the first of three kids, and I had only one brother, but I had other kids around, so I could say I came from a bigger family than just 2 kids... Anyway... I wouldn't want some corporation, especially one which uses child labor and buys from China rather than America (I'm picking on Walmart now) or one which sends porn emails (that'd be AOL), telling me or my family what's right. I don't plan on sheltering my kids from the real world. The real world has violence and sex... Treating your kids violently (e.g. beating them) or having sex with them is obviously wrong, but it's not wrong to teach them about what's out there and teach them how to make decisions for themselves. They're going to find out eventually, we all do/did. In any case, it should be a parent's decision, not that of a church, not that of the state, and certainly not that of companies which use child labor and send porn emails.

Granted, by the time we have kids, AOL will be gone from my system... I won't have them sending my kids porn... when they're old enough, my kids will have computers they'll have built or helped build themselves, customized all to hell, uncensored but supervised and monitored... and don't anyone start in on me on privacy, I want my kids to be able to access the Net for whatever information, but I want to know immediately if some perv is trying to seduce my hypothetical ten year old daughter posing as a fifth grader in the next town over...

[Please Delete]

Dark Reality, I did read your posts and yes I took that into consideration when I created my post. I am not ranting at anybody and I am dead serious.

I would love to go with an internet provider that would filter out all smut, porn, illegal stuff etc.

I'm pretty sure there would be a market for a filtered internet connection. I want no chatrooms or any of the stuff that could be considered unsafe.

I also think Google should do more to filter out smut, their current filters are adequate at best.

So for all the nay sayers who want no censorship of any kind, it is also my right to want it. I'm just so tired of all the crap that comes from the web.

[Adam Kinder]

No way, when I pay $40 a month for an internet connection, I want every bit/byte on the grand intarwebs available to me. From moronic 10 year old kids screaming extremely obscene phrases on Counter Strike, right down to the god awful shock sites out there.

Come to think of it I usually mute all the kiddies on Counter Strike Point being, the censorship should be in the hands of the end user, not at the hands of a mega corporation.

Actually, I wish the internet would go back to gopher://, BBS' and Usenet ( pre AOL circa 1997 )

[Please Delete]

Just to clarify...

I am not really talking about AOL per say, I am just saying I would like some sort of a filtered broadband connection which would keep smut away from me and my family.

I cannot even imagine what parents do with kids and chatrooms. Now that I am thinking of starting a family I really like the idea of keeping things of the connection. Kids are so smart they are able to get around almost any blocking software. Really all they need to do is install a no name browser and all blocking software is obsolete.

So my main point was that AOL is the only internet company I know of that provides even moderate protection. I think they may have a good concept and people would be willing to pay extra for a child safe connection.

[//Nathan]

And I respect your opinion. When I first got on with Earthlink, after AOL, I discovered newsgroups. Thousands of group names came in, and I just stared at some, thinking "there's no way Earthlink would send me that". Let's just say one had "underage" in the title. I went in there, and, if you don't know what newsgroups are, well, what looked like a bunch of emails appeared in my Outlook Express window. You can post (you email the group, and it appears for anyone looking at the group) or you can reply... it's like the predecessor of message boards. Anyway, I found this "series", 30-something parts... I click on 2 or 3 and it's some third-world girl around 10 standing by a tree, but fully clothed... so I click on 15 or 16, and... let's just say I was closing Outlook Express, yanking the phone line out of the wall, before it got halfway done. I could not believe you could find stuff like that so easily. Hey, I was new to the Net... and it was years ago, on the computer before the computer before the computer before this one, so AFAIK you can't prove anything... Now that stuff, I believe, should be censored.

I also think warez pages should be censored. Let's face it, none of them really have "Micro$oft Windoze XP Corporate Edition Pro" hosted on their servers, they just want you to vote for them on the "top 100 warez sites" so they can boost their ad revenue. Meanwhile, you're getting popups, ads, and spyware installs. Now, I have seen warez pages which offered "cracked" shareware programs, but they were little 1MB or smaller applications by no-name companies. I'm not saying that makes it right, just that you won't find Office or Photoshop or Acrobat or Flash or Windows or Mac OS X x86 or anything big or high-profile on the WWW. So all those pages are mostly scams, some with illegal content... but I would support censoring them.

And I do, to an extent, support censorship of adult content... but I feel it should be optional. That is, parents should be able to block it for their kids, but if the parents want to look up some naughty pictures after the kids are tucked in and put to bed, I really don't think anyone has any just cause to tell them they can't. And anyone who does, pretty much has their hands dirty anyway... Some, and I'm not trying to say all, priests abuse children, so it's the pot and the kettle for religion... surely looking at nude adults engaging in consensual adult behavior is OK compared to abusing real children... And I've pretty much made clear my dirt on AOL and Walmart... they're as dirty as any corporations.

For people who want a censored connection... Now that I have no objection to. I'm all about choice... and if you choose to limit yourself to a certain thing or by a certain criteria, hey, if that works for you, more power to ya. I simply take issue with Walmart and/or AOL advertising "Unlimited Internet" when they're censoring nVidia... I pretty much stick to the message boards, so I shudder at the thought of what else they censor, what else doesn't meet with their approval. When I had SBC Yahoo DSL in California, there was nothing I couldn't access, it was all open. As far as I know, anyway. So if they want to censor the Net, they should advertise it as family friendly, and plainly state that they work hard to ensure that you cannot access content they find objectionable. That might in fact make it more attractive to, with all due respect, people like you (MapleOne) and others who would appreciate the service as it is like that.

[Rikki]

MapleOne, on Nov 24 2005, 05:22 PM, said:

Just to clarify...

I am not really talking about AOL per say, I am just saying I would like some sort of a filtered broadband connection which would keep smut away from me and my family.

I cannot even imagine what parents do with kids and chatrooms. Now that I am thinking of starting a family I really like the idea of keeping things of the connection. Kids are so smart they are able to get around almost any blocking software. Really all they need to do is install a no name browser and all blocking software is obsolete.

So my main point was that AOL is the only internet company I know of that provides even moderate protection. I think they may have a good concept and people would be willing to pay extra for a child safe connection.

With respect, as parent it is your responsibility to filter what you don't consider appropriate - same as if there's certain programmes on TV that you don't think they should watch. As I said before, if the content is illegal then that's fine, but beyond that its your duty to define the boundaries.

[CTerry]

I have to agree with MapleOne to an extent. The Internet needs to become more regulated, currently venturing out onto the internet feels a bit like the wild west, venturing out into a wide lawless unknown, oh you have your major areas where order is being kept but its all too easy to find yourself in dangerous territory, especially if that's what you're looking for, and that also extends to that which is legal, but you might not want your kids seeing. The internet is the new media. If I want to buy a porn mag, or a DVD, etc. then there are laws and regulations in place which stopped me, until I hit 18. Unfortunately the internet is not guarded in such a way. I once saw a product, where websites could apply to have a rating of sorts, on language, violence, pornography etc. if you look in IEs settings you can actually block off those websites.

Of course there's a problem with that, in that by and large the vast majority of websites don't bother to apply because they don't have to, and if you're unrated then it treats you as the highest setting and blocks you. Such things seem reasonable, especially from a parents end, but as there is no legal framework it becomes incapable. Now what if an International Organisation was set up, with the role of policing the internet. The internet is without borders, it is only fair that the whole world has the opportunity to decide what happens to it. What if that organisation mandated that all websites had to have their content checked before it became available to the wider internet? I'm sure something could be built into Apache and IIS to ensure this. I don't think its too much of a stretch, but unfortunately it requires a massive political will of nations to co-ordinate on an International level, which they tend to be pretty crap at doing.

This post has been edited by CTerry: 24 November 2005 - 05:45 PM

[//Nathan]

I do agree more should be done to police the illegal content. Regarding my previous post, there was no reason a guy curious about newsgroups and not believing illegal porn existed or was served up by a major Internet provider should have been able to get such pictures of kids. Imagine the trouble I could have gotten into had I wanted that stuff, and downloaded the whole collection. You get caught with that stuff, there's some serious consequences... but it's not hard to find, and that's really not cool. I don't want to see it, and I certainly don't want anyone using my computer to look it up. So I support the Internetwide censorship of illegal material. But to be fair, that kind of thing is probably legal in a couple countries, and that's probably where the newsgroup was hosted. The girl in the pictures was probably a local. Normally I'd say we should respect the laws of other countries, but when it comes to hurting kids (even if all they did was take pictures... the one that started to load wasn't hardcore, it was just a solo pose) I say those countries should be nuked... I don't care how extreme that sounds, in my mind you just don't hurt little kids. Warez is the same way... I say open season, if people want to host pirated content or even pretend to host pirated content, I say let the copyright holders have at them.

Now as far as legal content... I do agree this should be regulated as well. But here's the problem: between high speed Internet, webcams, and digital cameras, anyone can be a porn star on the Net. A young couple (and by young I mean college age, in any case legal) can film themselves or take pictures of one another and post them on various sites on the Net. I hear of this being done on Myspace, but haven't actually seen any "adult" profiles myself (no links, I don't care to really). It's like business... before, business was just for a few, and with the Net, anyone can open a business (even teenagers... I know some of you skinners and coders here aren't yet 18) and get customers from around the world. Should THAT be limited? The Internet is opening doors, and I take a very cautious approach in thinking about closing some of those doors. Some should be closed and nailed shut and anyone inside killed, painfully (kiddie stuff, for example).

I suppose the UN should do something... like create a "World Network Council" or some such group which basically controls what can be on the Net in member countries, and control access to non-member countries' content by member countries' citizens.

I would agree with a ratings board, but only if it were truly unbiased. For example, problems would arise if the board were Christian controlled, and they rated Islam-favoring sites higher (higher being more offensive) just because it's Islamic or Islamic sympathetic, not because it's really offensive. Maybe there should be several rating categories. Sexual content would be one... Violence would be another... Profanity... Like you could say you want to filter everything above X sexual content level, above Y violence level, and above Z profanity level. But again, the choice should exist for those who want uncensored content to have it (and by uncensored, I mean uncensored but legal... no one should be able to legally access kiddie porn and warez -- that should be very, very difficult to acquire, so people who have it, have it because they want it, not because they stumbled upon it or came upon it by accident).